My sister had chicken pox over one Halloween in our youth. I recall being bummed when I had to share my candy with her because she couldn’t go out!
I got them right afterward, but it was so light that it didn’t really affect my life - perhaps a day or two home from school, but that was it. This was in the day when many parents wanted chicken pox spread so kids would get it rather than adults.
My kids had chicken pox in their youth. They was also light with them, but we’re now sure it was CP because med school lad had a titre done to check his immunity.
What’s scary and being discussed in my science circles now is that polio type illness hitting kids. It’s hearsay, but someone mentioned three youngsters at Pitt with it and the news briefly mentioned it last night - very brief due to the hurricane damage out there. (I don’t recall the official name and am too lazy to google.)
I got chicken pox as a toddler, and don’t remember it. I also don’t remember the mumps. I got measles in 6th grade. I discovered AFTER getting pregnant that I hadn’t had rubella, which was scary, and played into my decision to quit my job in Manhattan. I remember my small pox vaccine, and getting the polio vaccine on a sugar cube in school.
S had the MMR and other vaccines, but he had the chicken pox quite badly when he was four, before the vaccine was available.
I 100% agree about there being a special circle in hell for him, but he was far from the first. He just tapped into a fear that was already beginning to go mainstream.
Anti-vaxx nurses/other health professionals can populate that circle with him.
Finally got my flu shot today. And a toradol shot. These things were not related but the latter might help explain why the shot arm didn’t hurt at all afterwards.
I’m also really sick tonight. These things are also not related haha.
“he was far from the first. He just tapped into a fear that was already beginning to go mainstream.”
But he was one of the first that legitimized that fear by using “scientific data” in a published “study”. Up until Wakefield, anti-vaxxers had been weird, fringe types that very few mainstream people listened to. The Wakefield “study” was what propelled the vaccination concern to mainstream parents. My first son was born just under two years after that “study” and I remember reading and thinking about whether to vaccinate, which I never would have done had there been just bizarro conspiracy theories floating around. The “study” implied there was real, legitimate scientific concern about the link between autism and vaccination.
Last year Syracuse cancelled the fall season of lacrosse for both men and women because they had so many cases of mumps. I think it was more a case of the vaccine wearing off than that a whole bunch of lacrosse players (usually a higher SES group) never having been vaccinated.
One of my kids needed to show the MMR before living in her dorm (although the one she received when she was 11 was good enough) and the other had to show only the meningitis vaccine (also okay with the one when she was 11, although she’d had one at 16 too).
Florida requires all school children to be vaccinated. Except any who are refugees because of course those coming from Mexico and central America never have outbreaks. Federal law requires them to be in school asap, so overrides state health care rules. Ridiculous.
Some of the hotbeds of anti vaccine activism are high SES areas, like Marin County.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629616303629 suggests that while poor people are less likely to be vaccinated (presumably due to limited access to medical care), rich people are also less likely to be vaccinated, compared to middle income people. Since rich people presumably do not have much in the way of limitations on access to medical care, non vaccination is likely to be the result of believing anti vaccine propaganda.
We don’t know, but ignorance is no excuse. Many school districts require regular vaccine boosters, as recommended by AAP and/or CDC. More colleges every year are requiring students to be up-to-date in vaccines as well.
I think it’s a poor decision to threaten to expand the definition of “public charge.” In states that have expanded Medicaid, the expansion of the definition could lead some immigrants to not seek routine health care (such as immunizations) in order to avoid losing the opportunity of a green card.
Expanding the definition of a public charge may make our country’s vaccination rates even worse. And that could lead to outbreaks. And deaths of vulnerable populations.
Folks that may be passionate about this issue could look up the proposed federal rule and provide a comment, especially if they felt strongly about herd immunity.
This is very early in the season. The child died Sept 30. My workplace isn’t holding their free vaccine event until next week. I feel horrible for these parents, but not having their kid vaccinated by early September isn’t unusual.
